Looped In

From urban renewal to suburban sprawl, Houston’s real estate market is going through one of its most dynamic times in decades. Join real estate and development reporter Nancy Sarnoff as she meets the city’s developers, deal makers and dreamers and dishes with colleagues on all things Houston real estate.

Condomania: Nancy and Erin are joined by Jacob Sudhoff, a luxury real estate broker marketing some of the most expensive condos in town, to discuss why Houstonians never had much of an appetite for condo living and how that's changing.

Downtown boosters have floated myriad proposals over the years as they've worked to transform the city center into a vibrant place for people to live, work and most importantly, stay. The latest proposal is a plan to address and provide recommendations for downtown's continued economic potential, as well as offer ideas on mobility, technology and public spaces. When a Houston mega-church recently said it was planning a new location downtown, a move urban boosters saw it as a sign downtown is starting to take real shape as a residential neighborhood. Nancy and Erin talk about the changes happening downtown, past proposals to make the urban core better and the newest plans that aim to bring more life to the city's core.

Many of the thousands of laborers building Houston's glass and steel skyscrapers, apartment complexes, houses and roads are immigrants living here illegally. What if they were forced to leave the country? Chronicle reporter Dylan Baddour recently wrote about this charged issue, one that could have serious economic repercussions. Contractors told Dylan that construction companies would "face a difficult fallout, including higher labor costs, construction delays, and some projects canceled altogether." Dylan joined Nancy and Erin to talk about what he learned from his reporting and about the workers he met on Houston construction sites.